Walking into the science center where I serve in the Peace Corps this morning, I noticed the ordinarily jocund guard in a rather subdued state setting the three flags – those of the country, the national science council and the center itself – at half-mast. After I asked who had died, the kindly elder stated humbly, “Para las victimas del casino en Nuevo León…”.
Of course, three days before, I had heard President Calderón over the radio giving an impassioned speech out of step with our unfeeling time. The flags unfurled in the mournful remembrance of fifty-plus people burned to death by a narco-syndicate (i.e., the Zetas or the Gulf cartel). Analyses abound about whodunit and why (e.g., to knock off its balance the spin cycle of money-laundering through casinos); apparently what happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas. This penetrating pedantry, nevertheless, misses the point.
In a speech coloured by its somber eloquence, el presidente Calderón not only called on his countrymen to rally against this state of 'anarco', he also called out United States of America as the root-cause of such grim criminality. Not the U.S. government as much as its drug-users. That’s right: our country, high-or-wrong. Would organized crime still exist South of the border without the unrelenting demand for drugs from the North? Certainly. But nothing on the scale witnessed in that casino, on the streets and during the years of fear.
El presidente Calderón’s question here becomes obvious with even the slightest reflection. Why has American leadership – Democrat, Independent and Republican alike – been intent on trying everything to stop the commerce of drugs except to address the root-cause? When will a leader risk his or her popularity – even re-election – to call us all to account? Where is the statesman needed openly to ask that hardest of all questions: Why do so many of our fellows, living in the epicenter of the American Century, find their lives so empty that they resort to drugs?
To her credit, Secretary of State Clinton has begun to say publicly that the U.S. bears at least some of the responsibility for Mexico’s tragedy. One reason that the obvious question remains unasked reflects the likelihood of no answer. Until an incumbent national leader cries out with the pain afflicting his people, as have great leaders through the ages from King David to President Lincoln to Prime Minister Churchill, the suffering will continue. My upbringing included a stricture that I not criticize the status-quo unless I had a solution. Of course, I have no solution, either.
While many leading citizens are proposing the legalization or de-criminalization of drugs, I remain uneasy with that approach because distribution channels are already in place to encourage consumption in the future of 'black-market' substances (i.e., stronger than allowed) by under-age users (i.e., children in junior high on up). In any case, the perspective of focusing on behavior patterns still fails to address the void inside most people – that quiet desperation Thoreau could not finesse – that seduces many into looking for oblivion, god, rapture, peer approval or allayed curiosity, whichever comes first.
One used to say that when the United States sneezes, Mexico catches pneumonia. The Mexican dictator of the nineteenth century was far keener with his wit: “Poor Mexico, so far from God but so close to the United States.” Perhaps we can change that ugly fact of life, not only for our neighbors but for ourselves by treating addicts and recreational users as people in pain, defenseless against the nothingness or the hopelessness that stalks them patiently, day in and day out.
There are no magic answers here because drug users have as many reasons for, and behaviors associated with, drug consumption as there are users. But recalling the pragmatism of F.D.R. in the face of a darker challenge to our national well-being presents a refreshing response. We take our best shot at giving the poor hope, the wealthy purpose and the middle class a future.
If a national system of rehabilitation centers does not work, then we try stay-home-approaches. If de-criminalization does not diminish crime, we start indicting drug dealers to under-age kids for human trafficking as well. If schooling the poor does not curb use, then we offer scholastic aid to those making the effort to stay clean. For the poor at least, up-or-out has an entirely different meaning than for untenured academics or foreign service officers.
In short, we do what it takes within the limits of democratic constitutionalism. America has a reservoir of goodwill within her people that, once properly stimulated, can better the lives of diverse Americans of all flags, taking Bolivar’s dream to a long-delayed destiny.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Letter #37 to Fiends and Familiares: Mexico at one year
My group of Peace Corps is bumping into its first anniversary in Mexico. Before I arrived here for this tour, I had private fantasies of Hesse’s Siddhartha, not tending the ferry across the river, but teaching in some pueblo lost somewhere on the Baja peninsula.
Well, wisdom attained on other people’s money has not quite come to pass. Truth is that I am basically working on a traditional capacity-transfer project, living in a cosmopolitan city and enjoying the symphony with my novia at seven bucks a pop.
Nevertheless, in an engaging spirit of public service combined with a simple sense of a destiny not mine, I am writing down ten lessons from my first year so those who follow me have absolutely no excuse for being pathetic human beings.
PASCAL’S PAINFUL PARADOX. “Man is neither angel nor brute. The misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.” Learned that one the hard way this past year.
KILLING TIME, KILLING ME. Beware if you have not enough to do at first. Inventing activities to fill the time can wreak a peculiar vengeance. When you are ready to let the activity fade away, feedback comes galloping in, begging for the brain-murder to continue.
WHY MEXICANS ARE FRIENDLY. Because they are, stupid gringo.
NO ATHEISTS HERE. Gone are the scintillating sociopaths born without conscience, living without consequence and ready to die without continuity. Most so-called atheists here are people struck dumb, perhaps damned, by scrupulosity with no way out.
TRUTH of CULTURAL ASSIMILATION. Giggling punctuated by intermittent, delicately timed one-word slurs like ‘bueno’; ‘bien’; and, ‘verdad’. “¿And what do you do, blend?”
VINDICATION of SHAKESPEARE. "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them." Twelfth Night. Included to make me look like some intelligent visionary and other good stuff.
THE GREATEST GAUNTLET EVER THROWN. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth…”
TIME TAKES TIME. I thought after a year, I would be fluent in Spanish. Nope. People often try my patience by urging my patience.
The SECRET behind PREENING POLITICOS: Intellectual struttiness where neurotic exhibitionism amazingly morphs into self-actualization.
TRITE NOISE. People my age may believe that “children should be seen and not heard”. The young volunteers have a better point. Oldsters should not be heard, either: they snore.
Some of these lessons come from fashionably disdained sources as most people are too modern to admit to the truth of anything written before 1900. Yet these same, these dull, lessons remind ‘yours truly’ that humility really is the currency of the realm during this magical Mexico tour.
Mexico labours under the heavy burdens of a withering despair always whispering: drug wars, acute poverty affecting 45% of the population, etc. Yet her people rarely fail to help me when I ask; her women know that dainty art, long lost in the United States, of making any man feel special; and, strangers invite me to parties at least once a week.
In closing, let me affirm that I fall so far short of reciprocating all that these lovely people do; one would have to resort electron microscopes to discern what, if any, progress I have really made. Mexico will certainly not make me a Saint or even a Mexican. Yet she will continue to make me happy. Thank you: good-bye!
Well, wisdom attained on other people’s money has not quite come to pass. Truth is that I am basically working on a traditional capacity-transfer project, living in a cosmopolitan city and enjoying the symphony with my novia at seven bucks a pop.
Nevertheless, in an engaging spirit of public service combined with a simple sense of a destiny not mine, I am writing down ten lessons from my first year so those who follow me have absolutely no excuse for being pathetic human beings.
PASCAL’S PAINFUL PARADOX. “Man is neither angel nor brute. The misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.” Learned that one the hard way this past year.
KILLING TIME, KILLING ME. Beware if you have not enough to do at first. Inventing activities to fill the time can wreak a peculiar vengeance. When you are ready to let the activity fade away, feedback comes galloping in, begging for the brain-murder to continue.
WHY MEXICANS ARE FRIENDLY. Because they are, stupid gringo.
NO ATHEISTS HERE. Gone are the scintillating sociopaths born without conscience, living without consequence and ready to die without continuity. Most so-called atheists here are people struck dumb, perhaps damned, by scrupulosity with no way out.
TRUTH of CULTURAL ASSIMILATION. Giggling punctuated by intermittent, delicately timed one-word slurs like ‘bueno’; ‘bien’; and, ‘verdad’. “¿And what do you do, blend?”
VINDICATION of SHAKESPEARE. "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them." Twelfth Night. Included to make me look like some intelligent visionary and other good stuff.
THE GREATEST GAUNTLET EVER THROWN. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth…”
TIME TAKES TIME. I thought after a year, I would be fluent in Spanish. Nope. People often try my patience by urging my patience.
The SECRET behind PREENING POLITICOS: Intellectual struttiness where neurotic exhibitionism amazingly morphs into self-actualization.
TRITE NOISE. People my age may believe that “children should be seen and not heard”. The young volunteers have a better point. Oldsters should not be heard, either: they snore.
Some of these lessons come from fashionably disdained sources as most people are too modern to admit to the truth of anything written before 1900. Yet these same, these dull, lessons remind ‘yours truly’ that humility really is the currency of the realm during this magical Mexico tour.
Mexico labours under the heavy burdens of a withering despair always whispering: drug wars, acute poverty affecting 45% of the population, etc. Yet her people rarely fail to help me when I ask; her women know that dainty art, long lost in the United States, of making any man feel special; and, strangers invite me to parties at least once a week.
In closing, let me affirm that I fall so far short of reciprocating all that these lovely people do; one would have to resort electron microscopes to discern what, if any, progress I have really made. Mexico will certainly not make me a Saint or even a Mexican. Yet she will continue to make me happy. Thank you: good-bye!
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Letters to Friends and Familiares #36: Culture Schlock-101
The first few months in Mexico proved to be mightily disconcerting. In so many ways, Mexicans acted with solicitude and courtesy. Women appreciated my closing the car door. Gentlemen would hold the office door open for me to spare the effort of using the identification card (here known as la credencial) to activate the sensor to unlock the door for me to open the door and for me to enter the building.
While such preter-techical activity saved me at most five seconds, the gesture mattered more. My Mexican counterparts in business, my novia (Angélica) and my few acquaintances displayed nothing but patience and courtesy with my mangled Spanish that sounded more like a phonetic fragmentation bomb.
At work, people included me in their parties and ‘chismes’ sessions of office gossip, which I usually avoided with diplomatic deftness, “Tengo que ir al baño” (i.e., “I gotta go to the can, man...”). Senior managers at the (one of twenty-seven) national science and engineering research centers where I serve made sure I had decent tasks that could conceivably help the institution.
And so I wondered what the HELL was wrong with me and why I kept getting mixed signals. Thanks to a fairly strict pair of parents, I had had the benefit of a solid upbringing – though four decades ago “upbraiding” was more contextually convincing – and so my manners and social instincts were fine, as evidenced by the warm and appreciative smiles coming my way from people of all walks of life in Querétaro.
Yet I kept slamming into mixed signals from these same otherwise delightfully authentic people. The first time I noticed was with the Human Resources liaison for the Peace Corps volunteers, an educated, glamorous and charming young lady. On a chilly December morning, we crossed paths and I said in Spanish my standard, “How are you?”, in the formal third person, being the polite prig that I am.
She said in her spritely way, “Just fine. Thank you. Good-bye!” I did not show my rather startled reaction and simply let this eerie cross-current swirl right on by.
This type of thing occurred repeatedly and I became increasingly unsure of my communications skills.
Yet everyone remained so forthrightly friendly in every other respect that I figured that acceptance of something beyond me would be the most constructive course. Then in March, I got worried. At eight o’clock in the morning, I ran into the man who tracks the schedules of the busses as they go by and asked how he was. He said, “Great! Thank you. Good-bye!”
Well I had been through this enough to know to let it go. Then at the entrance and the guard booth, I asked how the guards were. In unison they bellowed, “Fine, thank you, goodbye!” Now I was really worried. Next along came my Department Head and, upon the usual courtly exchange, he answered, “Well, thank you. Good-bye!”
When the administrative manager of the office – a woman of noble mien – said the same mixed message, that did it: I was officially unnerved. There must be something wrong with me. At ten-thirty in the morning, I ran across the street to the farmacía where I bought some deodorant, though I remember applying the ‘Old Spice Original’ just hours before, and some mints for my breath.
Of course, these Mexicans were being indirect and I had to do something about it. I called Angélica and asked her how she was hurriedly. She said in Spanish, “Happy to hear your voice. Thank you. Good-bye!” Since Angélica is fluent in English, I blurted out in my native tongue, “Don’t hang up until you explain something to me…” She protested that she had no intention of hanging up and asked me what was the matter.
Confusion nagged my every nerve. How could I smell bad or look worse over the telephone? So I asked in English, “What is with this business of saying, “I am fine. Thank you. Goodbye…”? That woman of my dreams had the temerity to laugh and laugh heartily. Crestfallen, I braced myself for her answer.
“Ned, we are saying ‘Bien. Gracias a Dios’ like thank God, not Gracias. Adios…” That’s culture shock for you, now isn’t it?
While such preter-techical activity saved me at most five seconds, the gesture mattered more. My Mexican counterparts in business, my novia (Angélica) and my few acquaintances displayed nothing but patience and courtesy with my mangled Spanish that sounded more like a phonetic fragmentation bomb.
At work, people included me in their parties and ‘chismes’ sessions of office gossip, which I usually avoided with diplomatic deftness, “Tengo que ir al baño” (i.e., “I gotta go to the can, man...”). Senior managers at the (one of twenty-seven) national science and engineering research centers where I serve made sure I had decent tasks that could conceivably help the institution.
And so I wondered what the HELL was wrong with me and why I kept getting mixed signals. Thanks to a fairly strict pair of parents, I had had the benefit of a solid upbringing – though four decades ago “upbraiding” was more contextually convincing – and so my manners and social instincts were fine, as evidenced by the warm and appreciative smiles coming my way from people of all walks of life in Querétaro.
Yet I kept slamming into mixed signals from these same otherwise delightfully authentic people. The first time I noticed was with the Human Resources liaison for the Peace Corps volunteers, an educated, glamorous and charming young lady. On a chilly December morning, we crossed paths and I said in Spanish my standard, “How are you?”, in the formal third person, being the polite prig that I am.
She said in her spritely way, “Just fine. Thank you. Good-bye!” I did not show my rather startled reaction and simply let this eerie cross-current swirl right on by.
This type of thing occurred repeatedly and I became increasingly unsure of my communications skills.
Yet everyone remained so forthrightly friendly in every other respect that I figured that acceptance of something beyond me would be the most constructive course. Then in March, I got worried. At eight o’clock in the morning, I ran into the man who tracks the schedules of the busses as they go by and asked how he was. He said, “Great! Thank you. Good-bye!”
Well I had been through this enough to know to let it go. Then at the entrance and the guard booth, I asked how the guards were. In unison they bellowed, “Fine, thank you, goodbye!” Now I was really worried. Next along came my Department Head and, upon the usual courtly exchange, he answered, “Well, thank you. Good-bye!”
When the administrative manager of the office – a woman of noble mien – said the same mixed message, that did it: I was officially unnerved. There must be something wrong with me. At ten-thirty in the morning, I ran across the street to the farmacía where I bought some deodorant, though I remember applying the ‘Old Spice Original’ just hours before, and some mints for my breath.
Of course, these Mexicans were being indirect and I had to do something about it. I called Angélica and asked her how she was hurriedly. She said in Spanish, “Happy to hear your voice. Thank you. Good-bye!” Since Angélica is fluent in English, I blurted out in my native tongue, “Don’t hang up until you explain something to me…” She protested that she had no intention of hanging up and asked me what was the matter.
Confusion nagged my every nerve. How could I smell bad or look worse over the telephone? So I asked in English, “What is with this business of saying, “I am fine. Thank you. Goodbye…”? That woman of my dreams had the temerity to laugh and laugh heartily. Crestfallen, I braced myself for her answer.
“Ned, we are saying ‘Bien. Gracias a Dios’ like thank God, not Gracias. Adios…” That’s culture shock for you, now isn’t it?
Friday, July 29, 2011
Letter to Friends and Familiares #36: Myths, Conformity and Idleness
Cultural assimilation is a heady topic these days. ‘Heady’ remains the apt word because it exists mostly inside people’s heads. Recently, I participated in a training session on “the process” of “cultural assimilation”. Like most giddy subjects of political correctness, this discussion – grounded firmly in academic studies – contained about 20% substance and 80% methane madness.
Before the discussion, the weighting assigned to substance might have been 5% but volunteers serving in the country-side really face challenges and, as I am delighted to report, they adapt admirably well. We even suffered through the tedium vitae of a survey on culture shock to “help” newly arrived volunteers. Nevertheless, the people leading this discussion are earnest, decent and well-educated.
They are also wasting time and, in Mexico at least, fast becoming intellectual anorexics pushing food around their plates to look busy. The topic is not altogether devoid of meaning as anyone living outside of her fatherland must face adjustments, especially when that person has to study a new language. Nevertheless, people have been away from home for centuries: been there, done that.
While we may not be a global village, for at least half the world, the inter-net has extended the psychology of globalism into a common expectation of experience. This common vision, together with a modest amount of human sensitivity to the (re)actions of others, should suffice to navigate the rather dull waters of being an expatriate.
So why this entire hullabaloo about the obvious? Easy question: such vacuous discussions provide the fodder for boring Ph.D. theses published into dreadful tomes desecrating hallowed book-stacks of the Library Congress. Credit should go to a fellow volunteer who perceptively observed that the cultural adaptation model was ‘re-up’ of the five (or was it six) stages of grief from the 1970s.
Only one word need describe that erstwhile tripe remains: ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz
The only things interesting about Elisabeth Kübler Ross were the spelling of her first name and the umlaut in the first half of her hyphenated surname. The problem with linear models like these is, first, they are linear and, second, they reflect the reality of the person devising them. They serve one beneficial purpose of limited scope: providing means of support to an otherwise ill-equipped brainiac.
Anyone who has experienced the profound and riveting disintegration of genuine grief often finds the ‘simplistification’ of the Kübler-Ross model to be slightly condescending, perhaps downright demeaning. Grief is a living koän (i.e., the insoluble non-sense riddle of Zen) that breaks or grinds us down to an acceptance of certain latent limitations in ourselves and our lives.
So, too, with cultural assimilation. This re-tread, touted by professionals with the life experience to know better, trivializes the positive situation facing your typical migrant: the opportunity to collaborate with other people to expand his knowledge of language and manners as well as to widen her perspective. Collaboration with whom? Why, locals of course.
Cultural collaboration ought to be fun and reciprocal without the drudgery of falsely imputed tasks of overcoming ‘resistance’ or acknowledging ‘immunization’ or ‘denial’. We are discussing international living for pity’s sake, not some sort of syndrome or addiction. Most offensive is the petty tyranny of political correctness reigning down on anyone with the nerve to turn his nose up at this garbage.
People who do not buy into this spasm of the ‘glitterotten’ face labels like “out-of-touch” or “insensitive” or, worst of all accusations from liberal intellectual fascists, “well, he is, you know…” The little brat who decried the emperor’s nakedness was the Little Prince in my book even if he was damned as out-of-step with his more sophisticated and “grown-up” compatriots.
Before the discussion, the weighting assigned to substance might have been 5% but volunteers serving in the country-side really face challenges and, as I am delighted to report, they adapt admirably well. We even suffered through the tedium vitae of a survey on culture shock to “help” newly arrived volunteers. Nevertheless, the people leading this discussion are earnest, decent and well-educated.
So why this entire hullabaloo about the obvious? Easy question: such vacuous discussions provide the fodder for boring Ph.D. theses published into dreadful tomes desecrating hallowed book-stacks of the Library Congress. Credit should go to a fellow volunteer who perceptively observed that the cultural adaptation model was ‘re-up’ of the five (or was it six) stages of grief from the 1970s.
Only one word need describe that erstwhile tripe remains: ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz
The only things interesting about Elisabeth Kübler Ross were the spelling of her first name and the umlaut in the first half of her hyphenated surname. The problem with linear models like these is, first, they are linear and, second, they reflect the reality of the person devising them. They serve one beneficial purpose of limited scope: providing means of support to an otherwise ill-equipped brainiac.
Anyone who has experienced the profound and riveting disintegration of genuine grief often finds the ‘simplistification’ of the Kübler-Ross model to be slightly condescending, perhaps downright demeaning. Grief is a living koän (i.e., the insoluble non-sense riddle of Zen) that breaks or grinds us down to an acceptance of certain latent limitations in ourselves and our lives.
Cultural collaboration ought to be fun and reciprocal without the drudgery of falsely imputed tasks of overcoming ‘resistance’ or acknowledging ‘immunization’ or ‘denial’. We are discussing international living for pity’s sake, not some sort of syndrome or addiction. Most offensive is the petty tyranny of political correctness reigning down on anyone with the nerve to turn his nose up at this garbage.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Letter #34 to Friends and Family: Good Friday re-visited
Yes, it has been three months since Holy Week and my sense of timing is as sharp as ever. Nevertheless, during an evening in Annapolis recently, Angelica and I celebrated Independence Day with my sister’s family as well as the Priest(ess) and her similarly ordered husband (of the Prunells' church) over dinner and fireworks.
What emerged from this few hours of chatting on everything from lapsed Catholicism to Bishop Spong was that Saint Ann’s Church of Annapolis, a mid-to-low Episcopal congregation, had re-enacted the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday 2011 for the first time in many years at the same time I was trudging around the Calesa colonia (i.e., neighborhood) of Querétaro on the “Viacrusis”.
The only difference between the two events that I could detect was that the temperature was twenty degrees higher in Querétaro and walking the good walk in México literally made me a red-neck. Of course, in April and May, I had the blog to end all blogs written out inside my head and, of equal course, I found myself too intellectually and inevitably indolent to do a damn thing about my spiritual insight.
Nevertheless, this parallel between two rather dissimilar groups got my attention since this nitty-gritty and not-so-pretty ritual – after all, it was re-enactment of the ghastly death of a young man – seemed to be addressing some deep-seeded need within the average human breast. I say 'breast' and not 'head' because sacramental acts hardly pertain to the intellect.
Interestingly, however, as the spiritual utility of ritual acts is realized (at least among my acquaintances), intellectual resistance frequently subsides into the irrelevant.
So this action ties, I think, into the sacramental side of Catholicism; that is, the ritual side (i.e. upper-church) Christianity. What do the sacraments mean? In actuality, I am referring to the “action” sacraments, primarily Holy Matrimony, Confession, Holy Communion and Extreme Unction.
Like these rituals, the “Viacrusis” entails the taking of action by at least one key party to it. These sacraments rang hollow for many years as I was struggling mightily to assert, establish and justify my intellectual pride.
Finally, after finding a very old, very Catholic book on the Church and its pre-Vatican II ways in my mid-twenties, sacraments began to hold a third possibility: perhaps, they represented the sacred syntax of a spiritual life in this material world. In all honesty, I still prefer the lower church practices of Unitarianism (not Christian) or Presbyterianism.
Yet I have found the services in lower churches often to be very long and sometimes tedious. And, for me at least, nothing else on Earth quite delights me as the high Anglo-Catholic services – in very limited doses – of Saint Mary’s Church or the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City.
I wonder why.
Could it be that ‘walking-the-walk’ for two hours on Good Friday and a quarter of an hour every Sunday enraptures people far more rapidly than a group talking itself into a state-of-grace?
Could walking through ninety-five degree heat, walking in the sandals of that repudiated revolutionary, bring me closer to his humanity to afford a glimpse into His divinity?
Obviously, I really do not know because I am not a Christian. But Christians of diverse levels of education, intelligence and socio-economic status two thousand miles apart may have established a coincidental consensus.
What do you think?
What emerged from this few hours of chatting on everything from lapsed Catholicism to Bishop Spong was that Saint Ann’s Church of Annapolis, a mid-to-low Episcopal congregation, had re-enacted the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday 2011 for the first time in many years at the same time I was trudging around the Calesa colonia (i.e., neighborhood) of Querétaro on the “Viacrusis”.
The only difference between the two events that I could detect was that the temperature was twenty degrees higher in Querétaro and walking the good walk in México literally made me a red-neck. Of course, in April and May, I had the blog to end all blogs written out inside my head and, of equal course, I found myself too intellectually and inevitably indolent to do a damn thing about my spiritual insight.
Nevertheless, this parallel between two rather dissimilar groups got my attention since this nitty-gritty and not-so-pretty ritual – after all, it was re-enactment of the ghastly death of a young man – seemed to be addressing some deep-seeded need within the average human breast. I say 'breast' and not 'head' because sacramental acts hardly pertain to the intellect.
Interestingly, however, as the spiritual utility of ritual acts is realized (at least among my acquaintances), intellectual resistance frequently subsides into the irrelevant.
So this action ties, I think, into the sacramental side of Catholicism; that is, the ritual side (i.e. upper-church) Christianity. What do the sacraments mean? In actuality, I am referring to the “action” sacraments, primarily Holy Matrimony, Confession, Holy Communion and Extreme Unction.
Like these rituals, the “Viacrusis” entails the taking of action by at least one key party to it. These sacraments rang hollow for many years as I was struggling mightily to assert, establish and justify my intellectual pride.
Finally, after finding a very old, very Catholic book on the Church and its pre-Vatican II ways in my mid-twenties, sacraments began to hold a third possibility: perhaps, they represented the sacred syntax of a spiritual life in this material world. In all honesty, I still prefer the lower church practices of Unitarianism (not Christian) or Presbyterianism.
Yet I have found the services in lower churches often to be very long and sometimes tedious. And, for me at least, nothing else on Earth quite delights me as the high Anglo-Catholic services – in very limited doses – of Saint Mary’s Church or the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City.
I wonder why.
Could it be that ‘walking-the-walk’ for two hours on Good Friday and a quarter of an hour every Sunday enraptures people far more rapidly than a group talking itself into a state-of-grace?
Could walking through ninety-five degree heat, walking in the sandals of that repudiated revolutionary, bring me closer to his humanity to afford a glimpse into His divinity?
Obviously, I really do not know because I am not a Christian. But Christians of diverse levels of education, intelligence and socio-economic status two thousand miles apart may have established a coincidental consensus.
What do you think?
Monday, May 16, 2011
Letter to Friends & Family #33: ¿Is the Peace Corps Relevant?
A former Peace Corps volunteer (Former PCV) sent me an e-mail just after I arrived in Querétaro. She has become a bit disillusoned with the Peace Corps and international development in general over the years since she had served in Africa and particularly after getting an M.B.A. I have saved her questions until now since I had no miles on the odometer back then.
I am not well-versed on matters related to development and my experience to date in that line of work has jaded me badly. Those civilians that are good at it are among the very best Americans you will meet; they, sadly, are in the minority.
Former PCV: My questions to you are as follows. Could such techniques (performance measurement tools as articulated in recent development literature) be applied to evaluating the level of success or lack thereof with regards to the Peace Corps operating in many countries and the degree of making an overall difference in people’s lives within these countries?
Ned: This reminds me of an interview I had with USAID for being a finance trouble-shooter in conflict zones. I was good to go…until the last question: “Mr McDonnell, what would you do to bring Afghan contracting standards up to international best practices in two years?” One of the funniest one-liners I had heard.
¡Wuppps!
This question was serious. I started out by saying, “First, I would scratch out the word 'years' and write in the word 'generations'…” GONG sounded; end of interview.
If a longitudinal study -- of which I would be hopelessly unaware -- evaluated various programs (i.e., USAID, Peace Corps, Catholic Charities, GTZ, etc.) over time, I suspect the Peace Corps would rate comparatively well in that catch-all caregory of "sustainability".
Former PCV: In other words, are American taxpayers getting enough return on their invested tax dollars or are these 'beneficiary' countries doomed to always be in a third world of under-developed states of existence? Really, is the money spent truly raising the quality of life or making a lasting or significant difference for citizens in these countries or protecting their natural resources? Does JFK's vision amount to little more than a feel-good opportunity for renegades of the good life?
Ned: First, this activity represents what we call Goal-1 of the Peace Corps: providing grass-roots technical and educational assistance to under-developed countries. Since México is a proud member of the OECD, she represents an outlier in the Peace Corps portfolio of beneficiary countries.
So, again, answering this question comes down to calculated bloviation by me. That said, and in response to this question, we have to keep in mind of what we are up against in poorer, conflict-ridden, poverty-stricken countries.
These peoples face a double-whammy of a culture of poverty (as seen in "The Other America") positively reinforced each day by getting by on a dollar or two. Thus, many programs are bound to fail if they are evaluated in terms of manifest results documented in the time-frame of implementation.
After all, cultures take two generations to change. Patterns reinforced over a lifetime will not change. Largely unchanging parents exert a strong influence on the next generation. But the grandchildren then will have options as the cultural bias attenuates.
¿Don´t believe me? Look at Viet Nam. We started there in 1954; resorted to covert war in 1960; went overt in 1965; started getting out in 1970; and, saw our policy collapse in 1975. Yet by 1995, Viet Nam was already far more like a Western nation than a bucolically freeze-dried dictatorship (i.e., life under communism).
Former PCV: Or is each Peace Corps volunteer simply a mini-ambassador -- there to show-off American culture and altruism to the people of some village, town or city?
Ned: This question resembles what we call "Goal-2" -- representing U.S. culture to others unfamiliar with it. The cynical side of me thinks that this Goal-2 is a catch-all for dead-beat volunteers. Just follow the money. Most of the money flowing outside of the U.S. to the developing world comes from the private sector (¡Great Caesar's Ghost!)
Many Americans represent our country admirably all over the world, mainly through the private sector, just by doing their jobs. Beyond companies like G.E., I.B.M., Apple, 3M, Heinz, et al., many small businesses are doing the same, often with a human touch.
A Choate Rosemary Hall classmate started and has flourished with a travel company which, among other activities, leads good-will working tours to places like Haiti. These efforts, like those of the Peace Corps, have a bigger impact after the fact than many high-profile programs. People, poor people, desperate people will remember the help that these very special Americans gave.
Those seemingly trivial efforts do plant some seeds of self-help to sprout in villages around the world. Why do these inexpensive small-scale programs hold such promise? They recognize two facts about poverty: its maddeningly incremental rate of improvement and its structural violence. One calls for patience and the other for compassion.
Former PCV: Of course, the Volunteer will have many unique experiences to take home and talk about, if anybody is willing to listen. As I found out years ago after returning from Africa as a PCV, you start to talk about your experiences and after 3 or 5 minutes, the listeners' eyes glaze over. Most Americans just don't really want to hear the stories you have to tell about the culture you lived in!
Ned: These days, bringing these cross-cultural experiences home relates to what we now call Goal-3. My take is that most Americans care about these experiences but are simply too busy with mortgages, insecure jobs, kids, looming college tuitions, the frenzy of the information age to have the time, energy, attention or inclination to indulge my travelogues.
Better for me to rehearse a sincere spiel of inward impact and renewal...in three minutes or less. My friend is a great lady whose idealism has faded somewhat and probably for good reason.
To her I would close with just one observation: never under-estimate the power of example. The work of many people in and beyond the Peace Corps have made their mark over the years.
Thirty-five years ago, when I first toyed with the idea of the Peace Corps, I would have been one of the last people in town to think that, just a generation later, Coca Cola would seriously be trying to find ways to help water-stressed areas.
I think we can -- at least in part -- thank people of generations past in the Peace Corps and other out-reach agencies for success stories like that of Coke. Others, large and small, truly abound.
To the volunteers of today, including very brave young men and women in uniform serving our country under wretched circumstances, I say with pride: imagine how high your seeds will grow in the next thirty-five years?
I am not well-versed on matters related to development and my experience to date in that line of work has jaded me badly. Those civilians that are good at it are among the very best Americans you will meet; they, sadly, are in the minority.
Former PCV: My questions to you are as follows. Could such techniques (performance measurement tools as articulated in recent development literature) be applied to evaluating the level of success or lack thereof with regards to the Peace Corps operating in many countries and the degree of making an overall difference in people’s lives within these countries?
Ned: This reminds me of an interview I had with USAID for being a finance trouble-shooter in conflict zones. I was good to go…until the last question: “Mr McDonnell, what would you do to bring Afghan contracting standards up to international best practices in two years?” One of the funniest one-liners I had heard.
¡Wuppps!
This question was serious. I started out by saying, “First, I would scratch out the word 'years' and write in the word 'generations'…” GONG sounded; end of interview.
If a longitudinal study -- of which I would be hopelessly unaware -- evaluated various programs (i.e., USAID, Peace Corps, Catholic Charities, GTZ, etc.) over time, I suspect the Peace Corps would rate comparatively well in that catch-all caregory of "sustainability".
Former PCV: In other words, are American taxpayers getting enough return on their invested tax dollars or are these 'beneficiary' countries doomed to always be in a third world of under-developed states of existence? Really, is the money spent truly raising the quality of life or making a lasting or significant difference for citizens in these countries or protecting their natural resources? Does JFK's vision amount to little more than a feel-good opportunity for renegades of the good life?
Ned: First, this activity represents what we call Goal-1 of the Peace Corps: providing grass-roots technical and educational assistance to under-developed countries. Since México is a proud member of the OECD, she represents an outlier in the Peace Corps portfolio of beneficiary countries.
So, again, answering this question comes down to calculated bloviation by me. That said, and in response to this question, we have to keep in mind of what we are up against in poorer, conflict-ridden, poverty-stricken countries.
These peoples face a double-whammy of a culture of poverty (as seen in "The Other America") positively reinforced each day by getting by on a dollar or two. Thus, many programs are bound to fail if they are evaluated in terms of manifest results documented in the time-frame of implementation.
After all, cultures take two generations to change. Patterns reinforced over a lifetime will not change. Largely unchanging parents exert a strong influence on the next generation. But the grandchildren then will have options as the cultural bias attenuates.
Former PCV: Or is each Peace Corps volunteer simply a mini-ambassador -- there to show-off American culture and altruism to the people of some village, town or city?
Ned: This question resembles what we call "Goal-2" -- representing U.S. culture to others unfamiliar with it. The cynical side of me thinks that this Goal-2 is a catch-all for dead-beat volunteers. Just follow the money. Most of the money flowing outside of the U.S. to the developing world comes from the private sector (¡Great Caesar's Ghost!)
Many Americans represent our country admirably all over the world, mainly through the private sector, just by doing their jobs. Beyond companies like G.E., I.B.M., Apple, 3M, Heinz, et al., many small businesses are doing the same, often with a human touch.
A Choate Rosemary Hall classmate started and has flourished with a travel company which, among other activities, leads good-will working tours to places like Haiti. These efforts, like those of the Peace Corps, have a bigger impact after the fact than many high-profile programs. People, poor people, desperate people will remember the help that these very special Americans gave.
Those seemingly trivial efforts do plant some seeds of self-help to sprout in villages around the world. Why do these inexpensive small-scale programs hold such promise? They recognize two facts about poverty: its maddeningly incremental rate of improvement and its structural violence. One calls for patience and the other for compassion.
Former PCV: Of course, the Volunteer will have many unique experiences to take home and talk about, if anybody is willing to listen. As I found out years ago after returning from Africa as a PCV, you start to talk about your experiences and after 3 or 5 minutes, the listeners' eyes glaze over. Most Americans just don't really want to hear the stories you have to tell about the culture you lived in!
Ned: These days, bringing these cross-cultural experiences home relates to what we now call Goal-3. My take is that most Americans care about these experiences but are simply too busy with mortgages, insecure jobs, kids, looming college tuitions, the frenzy of the information age to have the time, energy, attention or inclination to indulge my travelogues.
Better for me to rehearse a sincere spiel of inward impact and renewal...in three minutes or less. My friend is a great lady whose idealism has faded somewhat and probably for good reason.
To her I would close with just one observation: never under-estimate the power of example. The work of many people in and beyond the Peace Corps have made their mark over the years.
Thirty-five years ago, when I first toyed with the idea of the Peace Corps, I would have been one of the last people in town to think that, just a generation later, Coca Cola would seriously be trying to find ways to help water-stressed areas.
I think we can -- at least in part -- thank people of generations past in the Peace Corps and other out-reach agencies for success stories like that of Coke. Others, large and small, truly abound.
To the volunteers of today, including very brave young men and women in uniform serving our country under wretched circumstances, I say with pride: imagine how high your seeds will grow in the next thirty-five years?
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Letter's to Friends and Family #32: Time for Isaiah's kin to beat swords into plowshares
Now is a time for the U.S. to stand strongly beside Israël; now is the moment for Israël to “think outside of the fox-hole”.
Shock-waves initiated by the United States and Britain in Iraq seven years ago becoming manifest across the Middle East and North Africa together with an oil drenched tsunami spontaneously flowing in from Japan have the world sitting fearfully in the dentist´s chair praying that the drilling through rotten material ends before the novacane wears off.
Previously, I have written before on this blog about Israël’s unsustainable policy toward her Palestinean brethren. In other settings, I have laid out in detail personal thoughts on Iraq and the Middle East. Thus, I want to be brief. For background reading, Stratfor’s well thought out piece neatly ties the catastrophe that befell Japan into the unsettled conditions in the Persian Gulf.
There is a nightmare swirling around the collective unconscience, especially for Israël’s always precarious existence. Iran’s inclination to project its hegemony through oppressed Shi´ites captures the media´s attention. Yet, I see the larger opportunity belonging to Israël.
Why? First, imperfect as she is, Israël has the only self-sustaining democracy in the region and boasts a proven track-record of economic expansion and permanent employment creation. Arabs and Persians alike see the fruits of her freedom.
Most Arabs realize that Israël’s breath-taking advance in the sciences, governance and education did not come from the United States. It was the Israeli people – well educated, everyday Israelis – who transformed a patch of desert into a western democracy while her historically bellicose neighbors languished.
Second, enter President G.W. Bush made a moral – and very difficult – decision finally to expel Saddam Hussein from Baghdad while the U.S. was busy leading a coalition to resurrect the stirrings of democracy in Afghanistan.
This risky policy bet that two developing democracies flanking either side of Iran would inspire that country’s middle class forcefully to foreswear a generation of religious tyranny. Most of the other régimes on the Arabian Peninsula are fast approaching their days of reckoning for years of corruption and repression.
Saudi Arabia´s coming collapse, more than Libya’s, will shock most other Arab countries into reforming themselves lest they be swept by a contagion of class warfare into the “great dust-storm” of history. All of this plays into Iran’s hands say the experts. I disagree.
The emergence of a general Arab-Persian conflagration fought primarily on Iraqi soil remains the greater danger than Iranian meddling through Shi´ite proxies across the Persian Gulf. So, what is Israël´s historic opportunity in this mischief lapsing into mêlée?
That of holding the balance of power between two peoples who despise each other more than either hates Israël. But…how? Eight months ago, the sentiments outlined below sounded unrealistic. Events across a troubled region are fast transforming the fantastic into the foreseeable.
Israël can step up to support the Arab Street´s move toward democracy, counsel collapsing régimes on reforms (structural and political) and guarantee the sovereignty of these frightened lands through the following five bold measures:
Shock-waves initiated by the United States and Britain in Iraq seven years ago becoming manifest across the Middle East and North Africa together with an oil drenched tsunami spontaneously flowing in from Japan have the world sitting fearfully in the dentist´s chair praying that the drilling through rotten material ends before the novacane wears off.
Previously, I have written before on this blog about Israël’s unsustainable policy toward her Palestinean brethren. In other settings, I have laid out in detail personal thoughts on Iraq and the Middle East. Thus, I want to be brief. For background reading, Stratfor’s well thought out piece neatly ties the catastrophe that befell Japan into the unsettled conditions in the Persian Gulf.
There is a nightmare swirling around the collective unconscience, especially for Israël’s always precarious existence. Iran’s inclination to project its hegemony through oppressed Shi´ites captures the media´s attention. Yet, I see the larger opportunity belonging to Israël.
Why? First, imperfect as she is, Israël has the only self-sustaining democracy in the region and boasts a proven track-record of economic expansion and permanent employment creation. Arabs and Persians alike see the fruits of her freedom.
Most Arabs realize that Israël’s breath-taking advance in the sciences, governance and education did not come from the United States. It was the Israeli people – well educated, everyday Israelis – who transformed a patch of desert into a western democracy while her historically bellicose neighbors languished.
Second, enter President G.W. Bush made a moral – and very difficult – decision finally to expel Saddam Hussein from Baghdad while the U.S. was busy leading a coalition to resurrect the stirrings of democracy in Afghanistan.
This risky policy bet that two developing democracies flanking either side of Iran would inspire that country’s middle class forcefully to foreswear a generation of religious tyranny. Most of the other régimes on the Arabian Peninsula are fast approaching their days of reckoning for years of corruption and repression.
Saudi Arabia´s coming collapse, more than Libya’s, will shock most other Arab countries into reforming themselves lest they be swept by a contagion of class warfare into the “great dust-storm” of history. All of this plays into Iran’s hands say the experts. I disagree.
The emergence of a general Arab-Persian conflagration fought primarily on Iraqi soil remains the greater danger than Iranian meddling through Shi´ite proxies across the Persian Gulf. So, what is Israël´s historic opportunity in this mischief lapsing into mêlée?
That of holding the balance of power between two peoples who despise each other more than either hates Israël. But…how? Eight months ago, the sentiments outlined below sounded unrealistic. Events across a troubled region are fast transforming the fantastic into the foreseeable.
Israël can step up to support the Arab Street´s move toward democracy, counsel collapsing régimes on reforms (structural and political) and guarantee the sovereignty of these frightened lands through the following five bold measures:
- repudiating her current apartheid by tearing down the wall and opening up access roads;
- annexing Palestine into a secular federation with a Xian capital in Jerusalem and six provinces – three Jewish and three Muslim;
- apologizing to the Palestinean people for past transgressions by recognizing the right-of-return (or compensation);
- leading an aid consortium for economic development and job training for the three Palestinean provinces supported by the U.S., E.U. and G.C.C. with Israël's largess being a fundament of her recognizing the right of returs; as well as,
- offering to lead a peace-keeping force in Iraq drawn from Turkey, Morocco, Malaysia, Indonesia and other non-Arab Muslim nations to supplement 5,000 U.S. Army regulars (arrayed in Baghdad as a trip-wire force against Iranian aggression).
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